


Ten Year Plan

by eternaleponine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexa Week 2021, F/F, Idiots in Love, Love Confession, Texting, accidental love confession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29779005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: When Clarke accidentally sends a text about LexatoLexa, she spends a very long night freaking out about the possible consequences.  They turn out to be anything but what she expected.For Clexa Week 2021 - Day 1 - Accidental Love ConfessionYou can see the associated moodboardhere.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 58
Kudos: 591
Collections: Clexaweek2021





	Ten Year Plan

**Clarke:** WHY IS SHE LIKE THIS?!  
**Clarke:** WHY AM I LIKE THIS?!  
**Clarke:** WHYYYYYYY?!

Clarke threw her phone down in frustration, then picked it up again, glaring at the screen as if she could will the three little dots that would tell her Raven was replying to pop up. As if Raven didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night than stare at her phone waiting for Clarke's inevitable meltdown. She could be anywhere, doing anything – or anyone – she wanted. 

_So could you,_ Clarke's subconscious (which sounded suspiciously like Octavia at the moment) reminded her. It was a conversation they had all too often. Her and Octavia, not her and her subconscious. She was much better at shutting down the latter than the former when the topic of Clarke's love life, or lack thereof, came up.

_"You could have anyone you wanted," Octavia said. "Seriously, you could walk into a club and take your pick. But instead you choose to sit in your room and wallow in Ben & Jerry's and self-pity. Which is the opposite of attractive."_

_"But delicious," Clarke mumbled around the spoon she'd just stuck in her mouth, letting Cherry Garcia melt on her tongue._

_Octavia rolled her eyes._

She always rolled her eyes, as if she hadn't won the dating lottery during freshman orientation, when she'd met her boyfriend (and likely soon-to-be fiancé, although Clarke thought he might be holding out until graduation to pop the question) Lincoln. Not that Clarke wanted him. Even if he wasn't dating one of her best friends, he still wasn't her type. Her type was... 

**Raven:** I would ask why who was like what, but that would be a waste of both of our time.  
**Raven:** What did she do now?

... unavailable girls who were out of her league. Who were completely oblivious to the fact that every time they smiled Clarke broke out in a cold sweat and her heart started beating so erratically she was starting to think a pacemaker might be in order. 

Clarke sighed.

**Clarke:** Nothing. She did absolutely nothing. 

She was perfectly sweet and friendly.

**Raven:** And that's the problem?

And that was the problem.

She could see Raven was typing again, but Clarke switched over to her thread with Lexa to read the last message she'd sent for the hundredth time in the last... had it really only been fifteen minutes? It felt like much longer. 

**Lexa:** Gotta go. Overnight shift at work, ugh. Maybe we can meet up in the morning? 

**Clarke:** Won't you be tired?

**Lexa:** Even a tired girl has to eat. 😉 LMK

Clarke hadn't responded. She hadn't known how to respond.

Raven's message popped up on her screen. 

**Raven:** Crazy idea – just hear me out – but maybe you should TALK TO HER?!

Clarke started typing furiously, because what kind of advice was that? If she was capable of talking to Lexa – about anything other than classes and dorm drama and other subjects of no consequence – she wouldn't be in this situation in the first place! 

**Clarke:** And say what?!  
**Clarke:** Hey Lexa, I think you're amazing and smart and funny and beautiful and I've had a crush on you since the day we met and now the crush is crushing me because I'm pretty sure somewhere along the line I fell in love with you and I just keep falling and it's like I want to marry you and have your babies and you barely know I exist!

She hit Send, her chest heaving as if she'd been shouting the words instead of typing them. Her head fell back against her pillow and she closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, her phone buzzed and she thought about ignoring it, but she wasn't very good at ignoring anything, so she turned it over and checked her notifications.

**Raven:** What, now you're ignoring me?  
**Raven:** Real mature, Griffin.

Clarke tapped in her security code and brought up the text app, switching to her conversation with Raven to ask her what the fuck she was talking about, ignoring her? She'd sent—

And that was when she realized she'd fucked up. 

She'd thought she'd tapped on the notification for Raven's message. She would have sworn on a stack of Bibles (or maybe science fiction novels, because she believed in those more than she believed in any kind of god) that she'd tapped on the little pop-up. 

But she hadn't. The evidence was staring her right in the face. Where her mini-rant/confession should have been, there was nothing. 

Maybe she'd deleted it. Somehow when she'd gone to click send she'd accidentally highlighted the whole thing and deleted it without realizing it, and it was gone, and she could rewrite it, or she could just let it go.

That's what had happened. 

It had to be.

Because the alternative was that she'd typed the message in her conversation with Lexa, and sent it, and—

Her hands shook as she switched conversations. 

Oh _fuck_.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!" Clarke muttered, although the last one was more of a strangled scream. She tapped furiously at her screen, trying to find a way to unsend the message even though she knew it was impossible. 

Why was it impossible? Would it really be so hard for phone providers or programmers or whatever to create an option to delete a sent text? Gmail gave you the option to unsend something, as long as you did it within 10 or 15 or however many seconds. Outlook offered the ability to recall a message. So why wasn't it possible with texts? 

Clarke switched over to her conversation with Raven – double- and triple-checking that she really _was_ talking to Raven, and started to type, but the screen kept blurring and she finally gave up and called her.

"I'm not ignoring you," Clarke blurted as soon as Raven picked up. "I'm not fucking ignoring you! I sent you a message! Except... I accidentally sent it to Lexa." 

"Ugh," Raven said. "Good thing it wasn't a picture of your boobs or something. That would be embarrassing. Although..." 

Clarke could practically hear the gears turning in Raven's head and knew exactly what she was thinking: Maybe sending a picture of her boobs to Lexa would get Lexa to finally notice Clarke as more than just a casual acquaintance. Hell, she might even be right, and for a split-second Clarke considered doing exactly that because it might distract Lexa enough that she wouldn't read the message that had preceded it. 

"I'm kidding, of course," Raven said. Clarke could hear her smirking when she added, "Or am I?"

"I wish it _had_ been my boobs," Clarke muttered. 

"Oh god," Raven said. "What did you do? Don't tell me you meant to send her – me – some ridiculous meme or something and actually sent her a nude."

"It's not a nude!" Clarke said. She swallowed. "It's worse."

"Worse?" Raven sounded baffled. "What could be worse than sending her a picture of your centerfold?"

"One, gross," Clarke said. "Two... it wasn't a picture."

"Okay...?"

Clarke opened her mouth to tell her, but no sound came out. She finally peeled her phone away from her ear, copied it, and sent it to Raven. A second later, Raven started to laugh. "It's not funny!" Clarke snapped, loud enough that Raven would be able to hear even if she hadn't put Clarke on speaker while she checked the message. 

"It's maybe a little funny," Raven said. 

"I told her I want to have her babies!" Clarke said. Wailed. Whatever. 

"I'll admit, that's definitely coming on strong, but at least it's unambiguous. And that could be a dealbreaker for some people, so having that conversation early on might be a good thing. I mean, most people probably don't go there on a first date, but you do you," Raven said, still snickering.

"I hate you," Clarke said. "I can't—" Suddenly she had an idea. "Raven!"

"Clarke!" 

Clarke rolled her eyes. "I need your help."

"So what else is new?" Raven asked. "If you're going to ask if I can be your maid of honor, the answer is yes, but I get veto power when it comes to the dress. I am not—"

"I'm not getting married!" Clarke said. "For fuck's sake, Raven, can you _focus_? I need you to _fix_ this, not make it worse." 

Raven paused. "Fix it how?" she asked, her voice dropping into a suspicious drawl.

Clarke sucked in a breath. "I need you to hack into Lexa's phone and delete the messages," she said. "She's at work and I know she's not allowed to have her phone on her, so we've got at least a couple of hours until her first break, and—"

"Hold up," Raven said. "First of all, what you're asking me to do is illegal. Second, it's against the law. Third, it's—"

"Illegal and against the law are the same thing," Clarke pointed out, cutting her off before she could go on a rant about all of the legal (and probably ethical and moral) reasons why she couldn't do what Clarke was asking. 

"I'm aware," Raven said. "I was making a point." 

"Point taken," Clarke said. "Since when do you care?"

"Since I've already got one strike against me," Raven said. "Since the best job offer I have post-graduation is a government contract." 

Clarke snorted. "You? Working for the government?" 

"I didn't say I was going to take it," Raven said. "Just that it's the best offer. But I've kind of gotten used to knowing where my next meal is coming from, and before you say that I would get three meals a day in jail, let me just point out that orange is definitely not my color."

"I'm not asking you for nuclear launch codes," Clarke said. "I'm only asking you to delete two texts." 

"No," Raven said. 

Clarke blinked. "No?"

"No," Raven repeated. "I'm sorry, Clarke, but maybe this is the universe's way of forcing you to finally face your feelings head-on. Because you and I both know if we all graduate and you head off to med school and she goes wherever she's going and you never see her again, you would never forgive yourself. Even if you met some amazing guy – or girl – and got married and had two-point-five kids and a white picket fence and all that, you would always wonder, 'What if?' You would always secretly be comparing them to The One That Got Away. You would never let yourself be happy."

"That's bullshit," Clarke said. 

Raven snorted. "Uh-huh. Have you met you? You aren't capable of letting go of a balloon, much less the possible love of your life." 

"Releasing balloons is terrible," Clarke said. "Animals die every year because—"

"You're missing the point," Raven said. 

Clarke let out a growl of frustration. "So are you," she said. "That message – that's not going to make her realize she's actually secretly been in love with me all along. It's going to send her running for the hills. She'll never speak to me again. She probably won't even _look_ at me. If she sees me walking down the hall, she'll suddenly have an urgent errand that requires her to go in the opposite direction. If she's in the dining hall and I walk in, she'll lose her appetite. If—"

"I get it," Raven said. "It's a little over the top."

"A _little_?"

"A lot," Raven admitted. "But go big or go home, right?"

That was a thought. She could make up some family emergency, tell her professors and school that she had to go home, and could they please, please, please let her finish the semester remotely somehow? She knew it wasn't customary but maybe they could make an exception? Then she wouldn't have to worry about running into Lexa. If she changed her number...

Clarke shook her head. No. She wasn't going to let this derail the last few months of her undergrad career. She was going to figure this out. 

"I'll ask her out," Clarke said. "Okay? I swear I'll ask her out. Just... not like that. If you'll just—"

"No," Raven said. "Clarke, stop asking because the answer's not going to change." 

Clarke blinked. It hadn't occurred to her that Raven might say no and mean it. She'd assumed Raven would see it as a challenge, a fun little Friday night project to save her alleged best friend's ass.

"You're really not going to help me?" she asked Raven, just to be sure.

"If by help you mean commit a crime, then no," Raven said, "I'm not."

"Fine," Clarke said, and hung up.

A second later her phone buzzed and she nearly jumped out her skin. She glanced at the screen, terrified that Lexa had gotten the chance to check her phone earlier than expected and was texting back to tell her she would be filing for a restraining order and Clarke had better keep at least 50 ft (or whatever the standard restraining order distance was) away from her at all times. 

But it wasn't Lexa. It was Raven.

**Raven:** Does this mean I don't get to be your maid of honor? 

"Asshole," Clarke said. She didn't respond. Now she really _was_ ignoring Raven. 

She needed a plan B. 

Clarke paced back and force across the worn carpet in her room, only a few steps in either direction because even though she was a senior and had scored a single, it still didn't afford her much space. Lexa's room was nicer because she'd gotten a better number in the housing lottery. Not that Clarke had seen it much – once for a project they were working on together to help their RA, once for a movie night with half a dozen other girls, and they'd ended up as far apart as they could get and still be in the same room. Clarke didn't remember anything about the movie – not even the title – because she'd spent the entire time trying to come up with a plausible reason to move herself to the sliver of space beside Lexa. 

She'd failed then, but she wasn't going to fail now. 

She could go to Lexa's work, find her phone and delete the messages herself. 

Except she didn't know where Lexa's phone was kept while she was working. Probably somewhere secure, like a locker, and Clarke didn't have the key, or the combination, or whatever she would need to get inside. Never mind the fact that there would almost certainly be surveillance cameras for exactly that reason. Raven didn't want to get arrested, and neither did Clarke. 

So that would definitely have to be plan C... or D or E or some letter much farther down the line, depending on what else Clarke came up with. 

She wracked her brain for friends - _real_ friends like Raven was proving not to be – who might be able to help. There was a kid in one of her classes who she was pretty sure would be able to hack into Lexa's phone, but they barely knew each other and she didn't want near-strangers knowing about her disaster of a (love) life. So that was out.

Octavia didn't know anything about computers or phones – her solution would probably be to get a pair of bolt cutters, snap the lock off Lexa's locker (or all the lockers until they figured out which was Lexa's), take the phone and smash it. She would probably even be able to make it all look like an accident somehow.

Which would get the job done...

... right up until Lexa got a new phone, downloaded her latest backup, and saw the messages anyway, days or weeks from now. Unless they hadn't made it to the cloud yet, which was possible. Maybe even probable. But was it worth taking the chance?

Also, Clarke would feel really fucking guilty if she destroyed Lexa's phone. Even if she'd insured it she would still have the pay the deductible and probably acts of crazy potential future girlfriends weren't covered anyway. 

So Octavia's plan – or Clarke's assumption of Octavia's plan – was also out.

But maybe, if pressed, Octavia might come up with something Clarke hadn't thought of. If not Octavia, then maybe Licoln...

"Lincoln!" Clarke quickly switched to her conversation with Octavia.

**Clarke:** Hey O, is Lincoln working tonight?

Lincoln worked with Lexa. If they were both working, he could come up with some excuse to ask to borrow her phone, and _he_ could delete the messages. Of course Lexa might see the notification on her screen with a preview of Clarke's message, but maybe it wouldn't show enough to get Clarke in trouble. Or maybe Lexa would give him her security code to unlock it himself, if they didn't have their breaks at the same time. 

Clarke waited for a response from Octavia, but there wasn't one forthcoming. Maybe she hadn't heard the notification? Clarke decided she couldn't wait for Octavia to tear herself away from whatever trashy reality show she was watching to remember that actual reality existed. She shoved her feet into her slippers and rushed down the hall, crashing through the doorway to the stairwell and descending one floor. She raced to the end of the hall and raised her hand to knock...

... but the sounds coming from the other side told her everything she needed to know (and more) about Lincoln's whereabouts. 

"Fuck," she muttered. Then louder, "Fuck!"

"We _know_ ," one of Octavia's long-suffering neighbors groaned. 

Clarke went back upstairs. She was out of ideas, and out of friends, and soon she would probably be out of time. She turned her phone off to delay the inevitable... then turned it back on again because it was better to rip the Band-Aid off than die by excruciating inches not knowing whether Lexa had seen and responded yet or not. 

She dared to glance at the conversation again, and saw that it still said Delivered under the message, not read. But maybe Lexa didn't have read receipts on. Maybe she didn't want people to know whether she'd read their message and not responded or not. Clarke scrolled up to check previous exchanges, but it only showed the status of the most recent message, of course.

She started to type again.

**Clarke:** Hey, um, sorry about that. That message wasn't meant for you. It was meant for a friend, and it was only a joke. See she thinks I'm in love with you and while I do think you're awesome and amazing and funny and smart and all the other things I said, it's in a purely platonic way. Unless you're interested, in which case

She backspaced quickly, deleting it all before a finger spasm or something sent that out into the ether, too. 

Clarke didn't sleep at all that night. She tried to distract herself with Netflix and social media and scrolling the internet – she even tried to do some reading for class, hoping that would be enough to knock her out – but to no avail. Every few minutes checked her phone for new messages, or any indication that Lexa had seen her text. In the wee hours of the morning she even considered calling Lexa. If the call didn't go through, she would know Lexa had seen it and blocked her to prevent any further insanity from finding its way into her inbox. 

By the time the sun rose, her eyes were gritty and she was so tired she was dizzy, but sleep still wouldn't come. She curled around her pillow and let (as if she could have stopped them) a few tears leak out, and then a few more, and then a torrential storm of them until she was completely wrung out. It felt good, like she'd purged something from her system, and for the first time all night she felt like she could draw a full breath, and her heart had slowed to something resembling a normal rhythm.

Which was the exact moment her phone buzzed.

She picked it up, fumbling and nearly dropping it in the process. 

**Lexa:** So is that a yes for breakfast?

_Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh no._

She could ignore it. By all rights, she could ignore it, because it was early and any college student in their right mind wouldn't be up for hours yet. But she _did_ have read receipts on, so Lexa would know she'd seen it. 

**Clarke:** I'll be there in ten.

There was only one place near campus that was open this early, so she didn't have to ask Lexa where to meet her. Clarke just got up, splashed cold water on her face, wrangled her tangled hair into a bun, changed into something that didn't look like she'd been tossing and turning in it all night, and went. 

Lexa was waiting outside, looking the same as she always did: perfect. It didn't matter what time of day it was, where she'd been or where she was going, Lexa always looked perfect. Perfectly composed, perfectly put together, perfectly the opposite of everything Clarke was in that moment (and most of the rest of the time). She smiled when she saw Clarke, and Clarke tried to smile back but she was pretty sure it came across as more of a constipated grimace. Lexa pulled open the door and motioned for Clarke to precede her. 

"Two?" the hostess waiting just inside the door asked. 

Clarke nodded, not trusting her voice, and they were guided to a booth in the corner, like the hostess had somehow sensed they were going to need privacy.

_Were_ they going to need privacy?

They made a show of looking at the menus, but when their server came to take their orders, they both ordered the same thing they always did, and flashed wry smiles at each other as they handed the menus back. 

"How was work?" Clarke asked, her voice a raspy croak. 

Lexa's eyebrows went up, and for a second Clarke thought Lexa might ask if she was all right, or offer her a cough drop or something, but the moment passed and her expression slipped back into its usual mask of pleasant neutrality. "It was all right," she said. "Uneventful."

"Uneventful," Clarke echoed, not realizing she'd spoken out loud until she saw the corner of Lexa's mouth tick upward. 

"Sometimes that's a good thing," Lexa said. "Sometimes it just makes for a really long night." 

"Long night," Clarke said. "Yeah." 

The server brought their drinks, and Clarke blew on her coffee to cool it, trying to focus on the ripples in the dark liquid and not Lexa's lips wrapping around her straw as she took a sip of her orange juice. 

Was Lexa just going to _ignore_ it? Pretend it had never happened? Maybe she'd realized Clarke hadn't meant to send it to her, or maybe she thought it was a joke, or a prank. Maybe she thought one of Clarke's friends had gotten hold of her phone and sent it. Maybe—

"So how many kids are we talking?" Lexa asked. 

Clarke sputtered, sending a spray of coffee droplets everywhere. "What?!"

Lexa smiled. No, _smirked_. She smirked, and that was _so_ much worse. "I have to be honest, I never really thought much about having kids, but I'm not opposed to the idea, so if that's something that's important to you I can make a few tweaks to my ten-year plan to accommodate." 

Clarke's jaw dropped so far it was a miracle it didn't hit the table. "I—" 

What was this? What the hell was happening? Was Lexa serious? Obviously not. She couldn't be. She was making fun of Clarke. Or teasing her, which wasn't exactly the same? One was to make people laugh at Clarke, the other to get Clarke to laugh along with her... wasn't it? But Clarke wasn't laughing. Clarke was...

"Hey, hey," Lexa said, grabbing a fistful of napkins from the dispenser on the table and quickly sliding into Clarke's side of the booth, pressing one hand to Clarke's cheek while the other blotted at her tears. "Hey," Lexa said again, softer now, her face so close to Clarke's she could feel Lexa's breath on her lips. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wasn't trying to upset you." 

Clarke let out a huff of bitter laughter. "What were you trying to do?"

"Make you smile," Lexa said. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. "I guess Anya was right – I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am." 

Clarke forced herself to meet Lexa's eyes, which was definitely a mistake because as soon as she did she was drowning, sucked into a whirlpool of emotion she couldn't – or didn't want to – understand. Because yes, she could see how sorry Lexa was, but she could also see something fragile behind it, something brittle and crumbling fast: hope. 

"I can get my food to go," Lexa said, her hands dropping away, knotting themselves together, the soggy napkin still clenched in her fist. "I just thought—" She stopped, shook her head. "It doesn't matter what I thought. I'll go." She started to stand up.

"Lexa, wait," Clarke said, grabbing her wrist before she could reach for her coat. "I've been freaking out all night about that stupid text. If I could take it back—"

Lexa worked her wrist free of Clarke's grasp. "It's okay," she said. "I get it. It was—I thought it was something it wasn't." She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped on the screen, bringing up their conversation. She pressed and held the offending message, tapped again, and showed her screen to Clarke. "There," she said. "Gone." She forced a smile, but her lips were pressed too tight together and it just looked painful. She reached for her coat and turned her back as she slid it on. 

Clarke grabbed her own phone and started typing furiously. When she was done, she hit Send. A second later, Lexa's phone chimed, and for a second it looked like she was going to ignore it, but then her eyes caught Clarke's, just for the briefest of moments. She checked her screen.

**Clarke:** Hey Lexa, I think you're amazing and smart and funny and beautiful and I've had a crush on you since the day we met and now the crush is crushing me because I'm pretty sure somewhere along the line I fell in love with you which sounds crazy and probably is crazy because we barely know each other but I'd like to get to know you and the details of this ten-year plan and find out if maybe there's a place for me in it.

Lexa exhaled, almost a laugh, and typed a reply.

**Lexa:** Ditto

She took off her coat and slid back into her seat across from Clarke. "To all of the above," she said. 

Their food arrived and they were quiet for a few minutes while they ate. As Clarke blood sugar rose, she started to feel a little more human and a little less like the world was going to end, and the caffeine from her coffee restored synaptic function, and along with it her sense of humor.

"Two," she said. "I'm an only child and I always wanted a brother or sister." 

Lexa looked up from her blueberry pancakes, fighting a smile as she finished chewing. "I'm an only child, too," she said. "And two sounds reasonable. But just so we're on the same page, pregnancy and birth is all you, if that's the route we decide to go." 

Clarke considered. "I can accept that," she decided. "Obviously I have to get through medical school first, and you...?" She didn't know what Lexa's post-graduation plans were. 

"Grad school," Lexa said. "I'll be done with that a lot sooner than you'll be done with medical school—"

"And internship and residency," Clarke said, rolling her eyes. Sometimes – most of the time – just thinking about it was exhausting, but that was the price you paid (along with hundreds of thousands of dollars). 

"Right," Lexa said, her eyes sparkling even as she tried to keep her expression serious. "But we could pencil in the wedding for after you finish medical school. You'll probably get a little bit of a break before you start as an intern, right? Long enough for a honeymoon, anyway?"

Clarke choked on a laugh – and a bite of omelet. "Probably," she said. "Kids will probably have to wait at least until residency, but I don't want to wait _too_ long. We don't want to be rolling into their high school graduation in walkers or motorized scooters."

Lexa snorted, trying and failing to hold in her laughter, and soon they were both giggling uncontrollably, until they had to force themselves to stop and catch their breath. Clarke rubbed at her aching abs. It was the most strenuous workout she'd gotten in a while. 

"For real, though," Lexa said. "Why—"

Clarke widened her eyes. "What do you mean, 'for real'? I'm serious!" She wasn't, obviously, because it was far too soon to be talking about any of this. They hadn't even had their first date yet – unless this was their first date?

Lexa screwed up her face. "Why did you never ask me out?"

_Because look at you,_ Clarke thought. _You're so far out of my league I didn't think I would even be allowed in the stadium._ But what she said was, "Why didn't _you_?"

Lexa shook her head, and Clarke expected her to say, 'I asked first.' Instead, she fidgeted with her fork. "Do you have any idea how intimidating you are?" she asked. 

Clarke's head snapped up, her face creasing into a bewildered frown. "Me? Intimidating? _Me?_ " She pointed to her chest for emphasis. 

"Yes, you," Lexa said. 

"How am I intimidating?" Clarke demanded. "You're the one with a ten-year plan! I can barely figure out what to wear in the morning!" 

"You're... you," Lexa said, gesturing up and down with her hand like that explained everything. "You're always so sure of what you need to do and what you need to say, and—"

"Lies," Clarke said. "Every bit of it."

"It's not!" Lexa said, her expression turning stormy. "You—"

Clarke reached out and wrested Lexa's fork from her too-tight grip before she could damage it or herself. She wrapped her fingers around Lexa's, brushing her thumb lightly over her knuckles. "I guess I've gotten really good at faking it 'til I make it," she said. "Because trust me, I don't feel sure about... anything. Ever." 

Lexa looked up from their joined hands to Clarke's face like she was seeing her for the first time. "Ever?"

Clarke bit her lip and shook her head. "I guess I'm hoping this will be the first exception." 

Lexa nodded, and Clarke got up and came around to Lexa's side of the table. Their knees bumped as they turned toward each other on the bench, and their noses bumped as they leaned in, a soft brush before their lips met. 

Clarke blinked, dazed, when they finally pulled apart, a moment or an eternity later. 

"Is it?" Lexa asked, her forehead resting against Clarke's temple.

"Yes," Clarke breathed, and their lips met again.

* * *

**Five Years Later**

"Aren't you glad I didn't delete that text?" Raven asked as she deftly slipped the last button through its loop and turned Clarke to face the mirror so she could get one last look at herself. Clarke smoothed her fingers over the delicate material and bit her lip. 

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?" Clarke asked. 

"Probably not," Raven said. "Now come on." She took Clarke's elbow and guided her toward the door. "Your bride is waiting."

* * *

**Five Years After That**

"Happy birthday, Aden and Madi! Happy birthday to you!" 

The twins leaned over, their cheeks puffed out as far as they could go as they blew out the candles. Clarke tried not to think about the saliva that was probably also being sprayed across the cake's surface, since she'd already had to smooth over three separate places where toddler fingers had prodded into the icing. What the guests didn't know probably wouldn't kill them.

When the cake had been cut up and doled out (with only a few tears as their favorite cartoon characters were dismembered, which was why Lexa had tried to talk them into getting a cake with balloons or stars or anything without a face, but had they listened?), Lexa wrapped her arms around Clarke and kissed her cheek. "Thank you."

"For what?" Clarke asked, leaning back into her embrace, trusting Lexa to take her weight because she'd never once let her down. 

"For not double-checking who you were texting before you hit send," Lexa said. "For being amazing and smart and funny and beautiful and braver than I ever dared to be. For marrying me and having my babies, just like you said you would."

"Two of them," Clarke said. "Although it sure as he—ck wasn't the plan to have them both at once." 

"You're nothing if not efficient," Lexa said, and Clarke could feel her smile where her face pressed into the side of Clarke's neck. 

"And you're nothing if not mine," Clarke said, turning in her arms and kissing her soundly. "So what do you think? Still room for me in your plan for the next ten years?"

Lexa smiled, resting her forehead against Clarke's, their noses brushing as they rocked like they were slow-dancing to a song only they could hear. "And the ten after that, and the ten after that, and..."


End file.
